The necessity of society creates the necessity of
constraint, of sharedness, of being like and acting
with others; yet the necessity of meaning creates
the necessity of freedom, of questioning and making
choices, of differentiating and separating oneself
from others and from all external realities. The
human condition is thus one of necessary conflict
between freedom and constraint, between the demands
of individuality and the demands of society. It is
this conflict and others which... make the problem
of social order inevitable (p.2).
-- Jack D. Douglas (1971) --

Within the realm of criminological inquiry, the privileging
of the scientific methods continues to condemn creative
criminologists to a marginal status. This situation is
unacceptable (p.105).
-- Bruce DiCristina (1995) --

Describing -- that is the last ambition of an absurd
thought. Science likewise, having reached the end of its
paradoxes, ceases to propound and stops to contemplate and
sketch the virgin landscape of phenomena. The heart learns
thus that the emotion delighting us when we see the world's
aspects comes to us not from its depth but from their
diversity. Explanation is useless, but the sensation
remains and, with it, the constant attractions of a universe
inexhaustible in quantity. The place of the work of art
can be understood at this point (p.95).
-- Albert Camus (1955) --

Few concepts are more central to the project of criminology
than social order. Indeed, any discipline that seeks to
understand the individual and society -- and one can hardly be
reckoned without reference to the other -- must rest on this
concept at some level. Yet criminologists share with other
social scientists a peculiar hesitancy to take this concept
seriously in their theoretical and empirical efforts. Perhaps
this reflects the tendency toward narrow specialization that
afflicts most areas of intellectual inquiry today, a tendency
that results in that scholar privileging structural factors and
another favoring subjective ones. That this type of exclusionary
thinking is simply wrongheaded has been noted by Groves and Lynch
(1990) with singular eloquence. They write:

Specialization certainly has its merits, and there are
problems for which specialized approaches are well suited.
Crime, however, is not one of them. Criminology should
take subjective orientations seriously because people
have them. Experience exists. Hopes, fears, and [End page 133]
memories exist. Pain and suffering exist, as do happiness
and jubilation. If these feelings and experiences are
beyond the grasp of some particularistic vision of
criminology, so much the worse for criminology. The same
holds true for structural orientations, which are
important because people enact their subjectivity in
specific social and historical contexts. Structural
sociology is charged with the analysis of those contexts.
To dismiss them is to dismiss the very circumstances which
create, reflect, sustain, enhance, and/or diminish
subjectivity [emphasis in original] (p.367).

What is needed, conclude Groves and Lynch (1990), is the creation
of "interdisciplinary bridges" that will "effectively integrate
structural and subjective themes" (p.368). I submit that the
concept of social order can provide the abutment for exactly this
type of spanning.

Social order of course is all around us. We count on it when
we drive upon any highway, where the use of turn signals and
brake lights alerts others to our basic intentions so that they
might act accordingly. Social order makes driving at high speeds
on a narrow strip of pavement in small metal and plastic vehicles
feasible. We assume it when we attend sporting events, although
certain developments can make social order look tenuous enough to
rally riot police, as recently occurred in Cleveland after word
circulated that the Browns would be moved to Baltimore. Social
order permits the assembly of large crowds to take place without
incident; it allows us to fly in airplanes, helicopters, and
dirigibles; it makes war possible; and it ensures that eggs
appear on the market shelf. Simply put, life as we know it
today, the array of interactions that populate our daily rounds,
is predicated on the notion of social order.

Now when most people think of social order, they actually
think of its obverse. That is, they think of social disorder.
This realization led David Burnham, in his "Special Introduction"
to Law and Order Reconsidered, to note as a weakness of the
report its failure to consider in detail the breakdown of law and
order in the major cities of America. "The Report's description
of the ugly reality of these diseases can be sharpened by
attending to specific cases," he counsels. And so he offers the
following:

Consider one city. Consider America's largest city.
Consider New York -- eight million persons who each year
call the police about 1,000 murders, 50,000 robberies and
150,000 burglaries. New York, where one out of ten of the
shoppers walking into one department store steals something
before leaving. New York, where 50,000 men, women, and
children each day inject into their bodies the false dream
of heroin. New York, where reporters saw a large group of
off-duty, out-of-uniform patrolmen beat up a small band of
Black Panthers in a court house. New York, where slum
dwellers during the last few years have ambushed at least
four policemen and bombed precinct houses and patrol cars
at least a dozen times. New York, where television cameras
recorded Columbia University students being clubbed and
beaten by detectives gone berserk, while two of the
department's top commanders silently watched. New York,
where more than 7,000 men are caged two or three to a cell,
waiting months and sometimes years for a court to determine
whether they are innocent or guilty. New York, where the [End page 134]
problems confronting virtually all American cities are
magnified to terrifying proportions (p.xiii).

Burnham's counsel seems wise. Detailed examination of a specific
case can help to elucidate that which might otherwise remain
uselessly vague. Case studies make concepts seem more vivid.
Thus, the idea of social disorder is made more pointed when it is
linked to the image of rogue cops beating college students or
citizens lying in wait to visit violence on unsuspecting police
officers. And so, this report on social order is submitted with
Burnham's advice in mind: the description of social order can be
sharpened by attending to a specific case, the case of a man in
New York.

It is with great hesitation that these events are committed
to paper, a hesitation born of the knowledge that words are too
ill-disciplined to relate the singularity of experiences fully or
accurately. As abstractions, words flatten out the experiential
terrain that we seek to symbolize. But for this dear price, we
get something in return, the social interaction that attends
symbolic exchange, without which our very existence -- both
physical and psychical -- would be imperiled. So let us not be
petty, forsaking the treasures of the pack in pursuit of
meaningless particulars. This story must be told, for in a small
way our existence depends on it.

Some things are larger than life, inflated to mythic
proportions that salve our common savage fears. That these myths
resemble little the daily travail that composes everyday life
seems strangely irrelevant. "We all need to dream," is the
common refrain. And to this sage aphorism clever and informed
retorts are slow in developing, for who can rightfully deny the
universalness of dreams? They persist for all on scales both
grand and petit, serving to reconcile deep contradictions of a
personal and, necessarily, social nature. Dreams, while
universal, can take a myriad of forms, but all act in service of
some keen and liveable resolution to the conflicts which plague
us relentlessly.

Of these ideas I was aware during the New York City trip.
There certainly were others, but they are left to the reader to
decipher according to his or her own consciousness, as they are
of no particular consequence to me at the moment and, in any
case, I had manifestly forsaken all accountability for the
duration of the expedition. "I am not responsible. I got to the
house at 8am like I said -- that was my only responsibility
today," I assured myself publicly. These thoughts rumbled
through my head, a preamble of sorts to the story which I now
intend to impart.

Lou Reed has said that "Manhattan is sinking like a rock,
into the filthy Hudson, what a shock! They wrote a book about
it; they said it was like ancient Rome." And for this claim a
tightly woven philosophical argument may be created. Yet despite
this truth, New York holds a perverse fascination for many,
bearing symbols of variegated meaning, some of which lurk
suspiciously on the edge of preconsciousness, ready to assert
themselves at any time. This was made strikingly clear to me as
I gazed on the city after we emerged from the Path station from
our confused little ride from New Jersey. [End page 135]

We got on the train in Hoboken rather deliberately, boosted
by the knowledge that we had a seasoned New Yorker, with many
hours logged in the City, as our guide. After all, M had offered
a calm presence when we were stuck at an "exact-change-only"
tollbooth on the Thruway with only large bills and a gathering
stream of cars behind us. "Just beep your horn and drive off,"
she said. And J complied with reckless precision as K and I sat
in an anomic trance. "What the hell does that mean," one of us
finally muttered, childlike. "You beep your horn and the toll
collector thinks that you dropped change so you drive off," she
instructed us patiently. "Everybody does it. In New Jersey when
you don't have money, you just take an envelope. I've got
friends who have dozens of them at home." Although the logic of
all this was still a bit fuzzy to me, and I was certain that M
had left out some key particulars, I didn't begrudge this for I
couldn't argue with the results. After all, we had eluded what
would've certainly been an ugly righteous slaughter at the hands
of the drivers massing behind us, and we were not being hounded
by State Troopers, who reportedly are mounting a horrific war on
tollbooth fraud, funded by federal crime bill dollars. Success
breeds confidence, so we felt rather assured, at least in our
leader, as we boarded the train for Manhattan.

After being on the train for two or three stops, we
transferred to another line, and I noted with some satisfaction
that we were only four stops from the World Trade Center,
according to the color-coded map on the harshly lit wall of the
train car. But then I alerted to an apparent problem. The group
was moving toward the doors, and this was only the first stop.
"What's wrong," I thought as I moved to catch up. "We got on the
wrong train," one of them told me. "We just need to go back to
the last station and catch the right one." This sounded
perfectly reasonable to me, a quick-witted solution to a mishap
which through astute observation was nipped mercifully before any
serious consequence could arise. I thought myself confident once
more, quickly assuming my stilted "big city" manner. But when a
train pulled up and the conductor asked, "Do you folks need some
help," I was immediately made painfully self-conscious. "Shit,"
I thought, "I must have 'helplessness' written all over my face,
all of my inadequacies stripped bare for all to see and mock. I
must look ill-stricken and weak, a juicy prize to the peering
eyes of the social pariahs no doubt converging on me at this very
moment."

I was shook from these thoughts when the train lurched to a
stop at the station where we had gone awry. We got off, waited
for awhile, and got on the next train which was clearly marked
with the letters "WTC," our intended destination. We emerged
from the subterranean labyrinth talking about how torturous it
must be as a transit cop, what with the smell of piss and all
wafting around menacingly. It was warm, a balmy 61 degrees on
the mid-January street, and rain was gently falling. A car-alarm
began to wail and a man was fidgeting around in the car across
the street. I continued walking, vaguely wondering for a moment
whether it was the guy's car, but the thought faded as I came to
realize how disconnected I really was from the scene. We walked
past an old church with gravestones dating to the eighteenth
century that looked strangely out of place among the imposing
skyscrapers surrounding us. "That's sort of anachronistic," I
said, and someone agreed. We turned at the corner and continued
walking as M looked at a small map trying to find some bearing
that would point us toward the South Street Seaport. Music was
playing loudly from a radio perched on the shoulder of one of the [End page 136]
guys who passed us going the other direction. It sounded like
Rollins Band's "Liar." We made a couple more turns and came once
more to the World Trade Center and the church with its cemetery.
Although we had just circled the block, we seemed to pick up
speed as it appeared that M found the proper course. The rain
began to come down harder making it difficult to see where we
were walking. Within a few minutes, however, we reached the
Seaport so the warm rain was actually refreshing.

I had never been to the Seaport before, although I had heard
people speak of it frequently, and I was actually surprised to
discover that it is just a shopping mall, with places to eat and
some bars, on a restored dock surrounded by old ships. It was
not how I had pictured it. Before we went inside to grab a bite
to eat, we walked to the riverfront to look at the Brooklyn
Bridge. It looked very majestic, an enduring symbol of the
gritty origins of the American service economy. There was a sign
at the dock's edge that related the story of the bridge's
builder. Apparently, he was stricken ill by the bends, a result
of work in the river placing the foundations, and was forced to
watch the completion of the bridge from an apartment window that
looked down on it. "I wonder if he would have liked to watch the
building of the bridge from the bar in this mall," I thought.

We went inside the Seaport and parted in the food court as
we sought something to suit our tastes. Since I only got coffee,
I sat at the table first and started to look around. I
immediately noticed small video cameras attached to the steel
beams that had been left exposed. I saw a number of them which
seemed to suggest that there was a large, darkened room nearby
with hundreds of television screens and some authority figure
watching over all of us. Some woman dropped what appeared to be
an ice cream cone onto the floor. She looked around, saw that
nobody was paying too much attention to her, and with visible
relief began to walk off, leaving the mess on the floor. In
minutes, a couple of janitors converged on the spill and quickly
cleaned the floor. "I bet those fuckers in the control booth
watched her with one of the cameras and dispatched these
functionaries to restore order," I thought. And I became sullen.

The others arrived soon afterward with their food. It
looked safe enough, like food available in every mall in America,
and I probably would have had something to eat too, had I been
hungry and had a smaller bill on me. My grandfather had solemnly
pressed, with a paternal determination that made me feel slightly
uneasy, a hundred dollar bill in my hand as I left his place on
Thursday night to catch my flight from the airport. I didn't go
to the bank on Friday, for one reason or another, so I still
hadn't broken it into smaller bills. I felt stupid for not doing
this, recognizing earlier the difficulty this would present as we
navigated the city on a Saturday. I felt awkward like this once
before, when I showed up one night to visit some friends in a
foreign city with only American currency. We decided to go
immediately for food as it was getting late, and we were all very
hungry. When the check came, I realized my error and quickly
secured a loan from one of my friends, until I could reach one of
the ATMs in town. Being in a foreign city without the proper
currency can be painful, and I was certain that trying to buy a
subway token in New York with a hundred dollar bill would not be
pleasant either. So I thought that I would fall back on a
stratagem that had worked in the past and stop at an ATM as we
walked around the city. [End page 137]

After finishing up, we left the Seaport and started walking
back toward the World Trade Center. We passed under some steel
structure that provided support for a large roadway overhead,
Buicks, Hondas, and Greyhounds rumbling past with abandon, and I
noted a long line of taxicabs. The driver in front of whom we
passed seemed to be settling in for a wait, opening his New York
Post with exacting care, being about 20 cabs back in the line-
up. We crossed the street, continued walking, and soon came to a
corner where a building had an electric marquee that looked like
a keno sign you might see in Reno or Las Vegas, with numbers that
would variously illuminate. I turned to J and commented that the
sign reminded me of W, who had quite a keno fetish and once tried
unsuccessfully to indoctrinate me to the game's elusive inner
meaning. It then occurred to me that the sign was mounted on the
side of a Chinese food place, so maybe the numbers represented
the orders that were ready to be picked up for take-out. This
seemed especially absurd when M told us that it was simply a
clock. "Yes, it is a clock now that you mention it," I cast out
enlightened. It was an ingenious device, the numbers one through
60 flashing in quick succession as each second passed, and the
numbers representing the hour and minutes staying lit for their
due proportion of time. As we walked on I became aware of the
World Trade Center towers once again. They rose prominently from
down the street. "It's funny," I said. "The towers do not look
as big as I thought they would." The others looked at me
queerly, and I got the feeling that they did not share my
perplexity. "It's just that I always imagined the towers being
bigger, you know, stretching toward the sky until they have
Communion with the divine Father," I offered pathetically as my
thoughts turned to the scene of the towers and the church from
earlier.

We found our way back to the vicinity of the World Trade
Center and, once there, searched for an entrance to the subway so
that we could continue our tour from Time Square. Fortunately, I
had the foresight to save a single and some change from my coffee
purchase earlier at the Seaport, so I was able to secure a token
with minimal difficulty. But this exchange exhausted my supply
of small denomination currency, and I was forced once more to
contemplate the gravity of my financial situation. I entered the
train considering the predicament and determined that I could not
put off a visit to an ATM for much longer. This would have to be
my first order of business once we got to Time Square.

I was jarred from these thoughts, however, when J made an
impromptu, albeit effective, entrance to the train car.
Apparently, the turnstile that provides admittance to the
platform malfunctioned, trapping J mercilessly in its iron grip.
J struggled bravely, under the largely uninterested eye of a
transit cop, and freed himself just as the doors of the train
were about to close. J acted decisively. He bounded toward the
train like a terrified gazelle and hurled himself through the
rapidly closing doors, landing in a three point stance which,
through the sheer force of the effort and the slickness of the
smutty floor, was difficult to maintain with any degree of
dignity. But as J stood upright and moved toward his seat, he
seemed unfazed by the event, displaying a coy and knowing smile
which caused me to question whether his entry was an innocent
misadventure or had actually conformed to some grand design. And
then, suddenly, there was song. A young black man, moving
confidently throughout the length of the car, was rapping
eloquently, exhorting his captive audience for contributions to
support his cause -- survival. I briefly considered asking him [End page 138]
if he had change for a hundred, but thought better of it when I
realized how troublesome it would be to convince him that I could
really only part with a dollar or two.

We arrived at Time Square shortly after this, moving with
the masses through the stale air of the station and up to the
street level. We walked for some time and soon found ourselves
at the Empire State Building. It was here that I noticed an ATM
conveniently placed at the corner, and I decided that the time
had come to resolve my fiscal dilemma. I parted from the others
and entered the vestibule which housed the machines. I walked up
to the third of four ATMs, inserted my card, and punched in my
PIN deliberately. I requested my withdrawal and listened to the
machine noisily process the transaction, thinking of how much
easier my life would soon be. But when the machine spit out a
receipt without any cash, I realized that something was horribly
wrong. "INSUFFICIENT FUNDS TO PROCESS THIS TRANSACTION," the
paper read, a paltry balance of 14 dollars and some change
printed underneath this stern admonishment. "Goddamit," I said
aloud as those around me glanced over cautiously. My failure to
go to the bank the previous day haunted me once more as I
consequently had not deposited my paycheck. Although I never
really know the exact balance of my account, I was certain that I
had at least 20 dollars at my disposal. But the ugly truth was
right there in my hands, and there was nothing to be done about
it. I felt a sense of desperation overtake me as I exited the
building to the street. My ace in the hole had been illusory,
and I now had to contend with the consequences.

After walking around the city for hours, mulling over the
World Trade Center vision and my precarious financial state, I
reminded myself of the denial of responsibility that I had
proclaimed earlier, and this managed to lighten for a time my
troublesome ruminations. It was then that M guided us to our
first bar, a small Mexican-style place in the Village whose name,
despite trying to commit it to memory on more than one occasion,
I can't recall. M informed us that the bar made very fine drinks
with hearty portions of top-shelf liquors. After briefly
studying a menu filled with dizzying concoctions, we settled on
rather standard Mexican fare, margaritas and daiquiris. My
margarita was quite good, numbing the thirst that I had developed
throughout the day. We became somewhat giddy, talking about
things for which we suffered caustic glares from a nearby table.
Amid this brisk chatter, we ordered another round of drinks, and
I was finally able to break the hundred dollar bill. I felt
considerable relief.

With the tequila from the two margaritas buzzing pleasantly
in my head, we left our table and started in search of a
restaurant, deciding on a Thai place a few blocks away. We
examined the menu and quickly ordered a large quantity of food,
all of which has since been overshadowed in my mind by the shrimp
dish that the slight waitress brought rapidly and obediently to
the table. There were five succulent shrimp on the plate with
some rice or other garnish, which was really beside the point.
These were magnificent shrimp, the likes of which I have only
rarely seen. When the plate was passed to me, I was transfixed
by the three remaining shrimp. It took a few moments of
contemplation for me to choose the shrimp I wanted. When I had
decided on the one, I moved with celerity. But, suddenly,
something went awry. The shrimp for which I had the hankering
was falling, gently but with determination, toward the floor. I
sat still, thinking "it's better to lose one than to risk losing [End page 139]
two more." Once the shrimp landed with considerable ceremony, I
leaned down, cautiously guarding the two remaining shrimp, and
picked up the remnants. I then turned the plate over to M to
continue the service and sadly deposited the worn shrimp on some
empty plate. Later, as second or third helpings were being doled
out, the last shrimp was offered to me, which I ruefully, but
through strict and socially sanctioned reason, declined. But the
others were insistent, and I was weak, as my defenses crumbled
under the weight of their assurances. "Everyone has had one so
why don't you?" was the tenor of their remarks. This seemed
imminently practical to me, so I indulged. While the shrimp was
very good, its succulence was tarnished by the knowledge that I
had unambiguously altered a course of events by my own
misadventure, eliminating, among other things, the necessity of
coming to terms with which of us would have two shrimp to eat.
The consequences were not especially dear, but the personal
linkage was indisputable. And I felt a pale of guilt envelope
me.

The events that now follow I relate with the greatest of
trepidation, for even now they conjure up terrible visions. But
we have come this far already, and it would be imprudent to turn
away from them, despite their ominous implications. We left the
Thai restaurant and entered the now darkened streets with a theme
bar called "Jekyll and Hyde" as our immediate destination. The
tenor of the streets seemed different at this time, a certain
festive air abounded as people moved assuredly down the narrow
walks along the road, probably thinking of the debauchery which
every Saturday night implicitly promises. We made it to the bar
in due course and were quickly seated on the second floor at a
table upon which a grossly over-sized mask, reminiscent of some
archaic South Seas tribe, peered threateningly. It was a
perverse symbol whose connotations seemed immediately suspect. A
waiter, looking dapper in his English-style safari accoutrements,
quickly descended on us, and we discussed with him the beverage
possibilities. J unhesitatingly ordered a halfyard of stout, and
I blindly followed him with my own order.

After the stouts arrived, J engaged his with the reckless
abandon that he had willfully displayed throughout the day. And
before I knew it, I was caught in a tit-for-tat drinking exchange
with him that drained our peculiar glass beakers in about twenty
minute's time. Unflinchingly, and perhaps instinctively, we
ordered another round. The waiter quickly complied, and we
returned immediately to our drinking contest, staring smugly at
each other as we drew in gulps in quick succession. Sometime
after we drank about half of our second stouts, a debilitating
feeling swept through my body that I have experienced before and
through retrospection have come to hold with a certain contempt.
Like any subjective experience, the nuances of the feeling that
engulfed me defies complete expression, even with the admirable
tool of language that we employ so frequently yet mostly
unthinkingly, but I can say that the feeling is accompanied by
the onset of a cognitive and perceptual fog and an uncomfortable,
even stubborn warmth. Perhaps the overwhelming heat is
representative of guilt, that weighty construct that eludes our
firm grasp yet always insidiously appears to badger and belittle.
Be that as it may, I was abruptly drawn back to social
interaction when I became aware of the increasingly persistent
coaxing that was being uttered on my left. "Come on, you're
falling behind," was the refrain. I think that I could've
negotiated their gentle taunting, but then I suddenly realized
that the mask on the wall had joined into the melee. The [End page 140]
specifics of its commentary is not really important, suffice to
say that I perceived a certain vituperation in the mask's hollow
voice, a vituperation that degraded my sense of self. I
determined that the only way to make the mask cease its seemingly
endless degradation was to push on with the stout. When I turned
back to my glass, I noticed with some consternation that I had
indeed fallen behind in our drinking joust. I immediately
committed myself to evening the score and eventually pulling
ahead, emptying my halfyard before J despite the consequences.
But, while I did manage to catch J and possibly even pass him by,
I couldn't beat him to the end, for I became stymied with perhaps
two gulps left in my glass. A sudden sense of self-loathing
enveloped me, and I felt sickeningly alone. The world seemed to
lose coherence before my eyes; I felt anomic. Consequently, I
was rendered incapable of engaging in social interaction in even
its most basic forms. I knew that I had to escape, slip away
from the threat of interaction so as to reconstitute my composure
or at least to find a presentable self.

I arose from my chair quickly and decidedly, without a word
to the others, but discernibly swaying. I realized as I
staggered away from the table and the evil mask that I had no
particular destination in mind. I thought of going to the
bathroom to collect myself, but I remembered that earlier I had
difficulty getting into it, as its entrance is deftly camouflaged
behind a fake bookcase. In my present condition, I could not
endure such humiliation again so I made my way toward the door
and the street, thinking that a walk in the cool evening's breeze
might assist in my recovery. When I got outside, I immediately
turned left and followed the sidewalk to the next corner where I
turned left once again. I walked on dangerously, performing what
Tom Waits has called an "inebriated stroll, using parking meters
as walking sticks." While my vision was somewhat clouded, I
could see that people were taking notice of me; I even observed
one young woman who, when passing by me in the opposite
direction, clutched her male companion with noticeable anxiety
and exclaimed, "Look at that guy!" I was beginning to feel like
the antagonist in George Orwell's brilliant story "Shooting An
Elephant," and I began to fear that I was being shadowed by an
agent of the state with a hunting rifle at the ready. I felt
certain that the alarm that I was provoking in the natives would
place this agent in such a predicament that he would have no
choice but to destroy me. I turned left at the next corner,
hoping that the side street would be less busy, but this was not
to be. In a city the size of New York, one is hard pressed to
escape others, and this was starting to make me feel nauseous.
But for one accustomed to being sick on the floor of a bathroom
with my head in the toilet, the streets of New York did not seem
particularly enviable. I was struggling with my wretchedness
when I noticed a small alleyway, which I directly entered.
Partway down the small walkway, I found a garbage can, the lid
for which I ripped off hastily, and violently deposited into the
can the vile tequila and stout that had precipitated this bout
with evil.

I felt better, at least physically. I left the alley and
found my way back to the bar, which was only about three blocks
away. When I arrived back at our table, the others looked at me
curiously, no doubt trying to ascertain the reason for my
prolonged and unexplained absence. They were gracious, however,
and did not force me beyond the parsimonious "I had to get some
air" accounting that I offered only halfheartedly. I think they
sensed fear in my eyes and did not want to push my volatile mood, [End page 141]
which was clearly evidenced by the retch that had dribbled onto
my shirt. As the bill had already been paid -- whether I had
contributed or not I still can't honestly say -- we rose to
depart, a move that I found imminently reasonable given my
adulterated state.

I had a lot of time to think about the preceding events on
the train ride home, after I finally overcame the difficulties
that I encountered with the bill machine that provided access to
the platform. Technology often befuddles me, and in my extant
condition I could not figure out which way to insert my dollar
bill into the machine. Again, currency was the sponsor of
considerable woe for me. Once on the train, we managed to find
our way back to Hoboken and the car uneventfully. The car was
still intact, always a concern when parking in New Jersey,
despite an egregious oversight earlier in the day which resulted
in the doors being left unlocked. The drive to the hotel was
unusually quiet as we each delved into our private thoughts.
When we checked into the hotel, we found that complementary
drinks were granted in the price of the room. While more booze
was certainly the last thing I really needed, I found it hard to
look a gift horse in the mouth. So we went to the hotel bar,
enjoyed our gratis cocktails, and endured the persistent
cacophony of pop songs from the '80s that droned over the bar's
in-house sound system. At closing time, we went back to the room
where we all collapsed into various states of repose. I found
one of the chairs that adorned the room to my liking and soon
started a soliloquy that could be best characterized, even then,
as mere babble. Soon J was snoring intermittently but decidedly,
a physical manifestation to which he freely admits -- being a
social discomfort that occurs with such regularity that its
manifester typically incurs only a mild ribbing and not serious
censure. The television was broadcasting a particularly flagrant
movie that starred Hulk Hogan as some kind of nanny or
babysitter, which I watched despite myself. And I stayed awake
until near 7am intermittently talking, drowsily and contently, to
M and thinking seriously about having to answer the phone call we
had ordered as an alarm for the morning -- a responsibility
which I anxiously, yet willingly, assumed.

To will is to be human. This is by no means a radical
notion. It has informed theories advanced by criminologists from
the beginning, if one accepts the popular accounting that
criminology was born with the publication of Beccaria's
(1963[1764]) On Crimes and Punishments. It forms the basis for
the American legal system. It conforms with the weight of our
daily experiences. And so it is that Theodor Geiger (1969[1954])
writes: "social order is present only in so-called acts of will"
(p.43).

That humans are willful creatures means they are active
participants in the creation of their world. We are not mere
recepticals for the forces of society to fill up and arrange.
Rather, we take what society offers and bend it to suit our
peculiarities. Thus, my friend coined a joke. Andy Warhol came
to fashion "Campbell Soup" cans into an artistic statement.
"Taggers" in New York City adopted subway cars as their canvas.
Knute Rockne of Notre Dame first threw the forward pass in
football. And I came to write these words. Creativity is the
essence of this active subjectivity, and its most notable
manifestation. [End page 142]

The bounds of human creativity do indeed seem endless. We
are awed by the sight of the Egyptian Pyramids, and the knowledge
that some mind conceived of such a project. We are repulsed by
the macabre details of Brett Easton Ellis's (1991) American
Psycho, in which bizarre torture, inconceivable to most, is laid
bare. And most of us are met daily by innovations in thought and
action from those with whom we associate. Yet bounds do exist,
for if they did not, we would all be rendered "sick" and
"spiteful," like the protaganist of Dostoevsky's (1974[1864])
brilliant novel Notes from Underground, who proclaimed that
"not only excess consciousness, but any consciousness at all is a
disease" (p.6). That these bounds exist is of course no great
mystery; sociologists, psychologists, and anthropologists of all
stripes have commented on them often, coining such terms as
culture, law, and ideology to capture them. Unfortunately, these
conceptualizations tend to reify human creations; they treat them
as "social facts" that dominate and direct individuals.

Yet the rigid determinism that the "social facts" position
seems to entail simply does not accord with common experience,
including that of sociologists. Howard Becker (1994) has noted
in his essay on "Conceptualizing Coincidence" how sociologists,
when discussing the genesis of their projects, often say "it just
happened," implicitly exempting themselves from the "iron laws"
that they like to impose on other people in their own theories
and conceptualizations. We all seem to know that we could have
acted differently than we did on some occasion, that we could
have thought of something else to say or do, yet we also seem
willing to acknowledge that forces outside of us had a hand in
determining what we in fact accomplished. If the concepts
employed by sociologists, psychologists, criminologists, and
others are to be of any value in coming to understand ourselves,
than they must recognize this basic insight: human beings act
out their subjectivty within limits. And it is toward this end
that the concept of social order might be usefully applied.

Campbell, James; Sahid, Joseph; and Stang, David. (1970).
Law and order reconsidered: Report of the Task Force on
Law and Law Enforcement to the National Commission on the
Causes and Prevention of Violence. New York: Bantam
Books.